Huawei said at the event that it has developed electronic design automation (EDA) software for designing chips that will be produced on 14nm-class process technology. Reuters report. The 14nm node is several generations behind his 3nm production node, which is currently used to make the most advanced chips, but it’s a big breakthrough for his EDA industry in China.
According to incoming chairman Xu Zhijun’s speech on February 28, Huawei plans to complete testing of its EDA software for advanced chips at 14nm and beyond this year. 14nm and above tools. The replacement chairman reportedly added that Huawei has already developed 78 tools related to semiconductor hardware and software.
Huawei plans to use its own EDA software to design its own HiSilicon chips, but Chinese financial news magazine Caijing reported that Xu said he wanted to share these tools with partners and customers. bottom.
China has set itself the goal of a self-sufficient semiconductor design and manufacturing industry, but many key pieces are still missing. Among the things the People’s Republic lacks is its own electronic design automation software. There are thousands of chip designers in China, most of whom use his EDA tools developed by US-based Ansys, Cadence, Synopsys and Germany-based Siemens EDA. .
under Latest Export Control Regulations Due to regulations imposed by the US government in October 2022, hardware and software technologies of US origin that enable the development or manufacture of logic chips with non-planar transistors on the 14nm/16nm node must be approved by the US Department of State. We cannot ship to China without a proper export license. commercial.
Like advanced wafer fab equipment, advanced EDA tools are among the items that cannot be shipped to China with US government approval.
HiSilicon and potentially other China-based chip designers could use Huawei’s software to develop chipsets manufactured at the 14nm-class node in 2023 or 2024. On the other hand, it is still unclear whether the chips can be manufactured at his Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp in China. (SMIC), TSMC in Taiwan or Samsung Foundry in South Korea. These companies must be licensed by the US DoC to fulfill orders from Chinese customers.
Huawei is also committed to its own wafer fab tools, which are the foundation of China’s semiconductor industry. However, these tools won’t be fab for at least the next few years.
